There was an article in the Chronicle-Journal about the new waterfront project, I can't find it online though.
Anyway, they're rethinking their plan. Again.
They're going to make the former pool six site a market place / hotel, with the main enterance of the hotel near the new park street enterance of the area. The hotel will be in the 4-10 storey range. They market place will be 1-2 storey mixed locally owned and major chain businesses, but they're looking for a pedestrian feel. It'll probably have stuff like Tim Hortons or McDonalds or whatever; anyway, in the middle of that is supposed to be a park/plaza, lots of trees and probably fountains. On one side is the cruise ship dock and on the other is an expansion to the civilian marina. Along the road going from Marina Park to the pool six site, mostly parking and greenspace, alot of walking paths on the entire site. They're going to move the train tracks closer to Water street (the tracks along wilson street headland were ripped up years ago, they're going to move tracks back to there and use the part where tracks are in the plan, apparently) and have alot of greenspace there.
The condos that were supposed to go with it have moved to where the bus terminal is now, and that will either be moved to Intercity (it will be combined with the one in Fort William, with will likely be replaced by the proposed new consolidated courthouse) or moved to another part of the downtown core (probably on the other side of the provincial building, between Marina Park Tower and Marina Park Place) and the condos will be 'Vancouver style' with shoppes and crap on the main floor podium and one or two ten storey towers (that will not exceed the hieght of the hydro building for historical purposes) will be built there depending on demand. The main business/hotel component will likely be finished by 2011, the residential part may not even be built. We do tend to have hotel room shortages because they're used as temp housing for displaced natives when they have to be evactuated from their reserves for reasons that shouldn't exist in this hemisphere.
In non-waterfront news, the Shelter House is almost finished (it's located across from the Royal Eddie, about a block or two from the old one which is a sneeze away from collapsing on itself), and a new ten unit hospice is being built, it will be the first of its kind in Canada outside of Toronto where each patient gets an entire suite, allowing them to pass away in peace with their family, as opposed to the current hospice which has very small rooms in the main hospital and is quite impersonal.
The University recently installed a pedestrian underpass to allow students to cross LUDrive easier, and it will be renovated to connect to the new proposed Lakehead Convention Centre should that be built, all they need is funding (they have an okay to build it, from what I understand)
Condo/Retirement home construction has wound down this year, but Pine View II should begin construction next spring, and sales of pphase III are begining. The city wouldn't let the developer build a highrise with parkspace around it that would be shared with the neigbouring retirement home (at the corners of Red River, Pine and Dorothy) because it would 'cast a shadow' so he built the thing sideways in 2 4 storey and one yet-undetermined-height condos.
The court house isn't really a stale proposal, there's just a dead lock because while downtown has alot of vacancies, none of them are big enough to support even a slender highrise, other than the parking lot by Paterson Park which is dearly needed (our downtowns have insufficient parking for the demand, amazingly enough. You have to pay almost 24 hours a day, and youre lucky if you can park within 3 blocks of where youre going) but I figure they could add another level or two to the Victoriaville parkade (or rebuild it to something nicer, if thats impossible) and put it there, making a triangle shape of Parterson tower, Royal Eddie and the courthouse (all 30-45m high)
That's all I can think of.. none of these are really recent stories just going from memory, but that's most of the developments we've got. In the past few years we've opened the 6 storey ATAC centre, the most technologically advanced building in NWO, the medical school, the new hospital and neighbouring profession building, and no less than 450 tim Hortonses.
